page_title: William Pitt Union
section_title: A part of Pitt
hierarchical_section_title: William Pitt Union / History / A part of Pitt
caption_attribution_description: English: A ballroom inside William Pitt Union at the University of Pittsburgh. photo by Michael G White
context_page_description: The William Pitt Union, built in 1898 as the Hotel Schenley, is the student union building of the University of Pittsburgh main campus, and is a Pennsylvania and Pittsburgh History and Landmarks Foundation Historic Landmark. Designed by Pittsburgh-based architects Rutan & Russell in the Beaux-Arts style of architecture, the Schenley Hotel catered to local and visiting well-to-do people. The University of Pittsburgh acquired the property in 1956.
context_section_description: In 1956, the then Schenley Park Hotel was sold to the University of Pittsburgh. The hotel underwent a $1 million ($9.4 million in 2019 dollars) renovation to convert it to university use. The top four floors first served as a men's dormitory called Schenley House while the rest of the building was purposed as a  student union, which was named Schenley Hall.
  Shortly after this, during the height of the cold war in September 1959, the Schenley Hall ballroom in the Union was the site of a luncheon for Nikita Khrushchev, chairman of the Soviet Union, and various Soviet and U.S. officials, including Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr. that was hosted by the University of Pittsburgh and Pitt Chancellor Edward Litchfield. Pittsburgh and the University was the last stop in his eleven-day transcontinental tour prior to a three-day conference with President Dwight D. Eisenhower.  The New York Times  proclaimed "Pittsburgh Stop Warmest of Tour".
  As the student population of the Pittsburgh campus blossomed to 30,000-plus and their activities diversified and grew, it became clear that the grand structure needed an overhaul.
  In 1980, the University announced a $13.9 million ($43.1 million in 2019 dollars) renovation and restoration for the Union, made possible by bonds sold through the Allegheny County Higher Education Building Authority.
  During the 18-month project and restoration led by Williams Trebilcock Whitehead, seven upper floors were gutted to make way for modern offices for students and the student affairs administration. A 10th floor, which had been added several years after the hotel was first built, was removed to relieve stress on the building. However, the turn-of-the-century character of the main floor was restored through careful restoration of the Louis XV mirrored ballroom, the lower lounge that had enclosed the original Bigelow Boulevard-side porch 13 years after the hotel was originally built, and the marbled-wall former hotel lobby, now called the Tansky Family Lounge, which includes the "stairway to nowhere", a remnant of a previous renovation. In addition, the rarely used basement was transformed into a functional lower level with a new Forbes Avenue Entrance and plaza. The original wooden hotel room doors salvage from the upstairs renovation were used for the walls of the lower level student recreation room, now called "Nordy's Place".  Further, a third west entrance facing the university's Schenley Quadrangle and Litchfield Towers dormitories was added and included a new multi-level glass roofed atrium just inside the new entrance. The renovations were completed in 1983 and the building was renamed the William Pitt Union.
caption: The William Pitt Union Ballroom
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